


your footprints, my sand

by frogfarm



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Loss of Innocence, Mortality, Personal Growth, Research
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5349671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogfarm/pseuds/frogfarm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric hangs on, and refuses to let go.</p><p>Post-2x11, "Self-Made Man"; references 2x22, "Born To Run".</p>
            </blockquote>





	your footprints, my sand

> _"He was doing something and it doesn't make sense to me. I need to find out what it was."_

That night, Eric calls in sick. He's expecting more friction even though it's his first unscheduled absence, but the woman at the admin desk doesn't bat an eye over the phone from the sound of it. Something in her voice says she remembers his story, and while he'd thought he was over it her kindness grates until he can taste the blood. He stays up half the night working on his paper, falls asleep at his desk and wakes to sunlight filtering through the blinds, roommates tiptoeing around him with hushed whispers.

The morning news reports a break-in at Pico Tower, currently under renovation. Some of the inner walls appear to have been attacked with a sledgehammer. The main photo is of a collapsed elevator, crumpled halfway into the floor. Speculations abound regarding .45 shells found on the scene, the tabloids trumpeting wild rumors of antique patina that dated the brass back to the time of Prohibition.

None of it makes sense.

 

* * *

 

He hands his paper in, barely on time. Its quality suffers from his current state of distraction, but it's only when the exploits of Peter the Great are safely in the hands of the TA that he seriously sets himself to grinding numbers from growth stages to life expectancies, all the probabilities he can imagine. Drives himself to the brink of nausea, choking on statistics until he threatens to become one.

It still takes him a week to make the appointment. When the oncologist asks him why he came in early he can feel the tears start, and all Eric can think is: _I lost my best friend._

Was she ever his friend?

What

(who)

was she?

 

* * *

 

Against his better judgement, he gets drunk. It's not even decent liquor, and Eric spends the evening locked in the bathroom, so dizzy he thinks he'll fall straight up, right off the face of the earth. He remembers the tremble of his hands as he held the Glock, the gnawing in his stomach at the possibility of failure. The shock and jump of the weapon in his grasp; the inexplicable joy at that feeling of control. The surprising heat of the bullet in his hands.

When she pulled it from between the phonebooks, Cameron didn't flinch. Her face serene as an angel's; the smooth and placid surface of her delicate features, so like a doll.

He does not throw up.

 

* * *

 

He finds the bullet in his shirt pocket while doing laundry. It shouldn't hurt this much to think of throwing it out, and he borrows a microengraving drill and attaches the spent shell to his dad's old dogtags; sits there staring at the metal forever before slipping the chain once more around his neck. All day he can feel it burn against his chest. It only feels hotter that night when he crawls into bed.

Mom calls the next day to fuss, make sure he's not eating too much sugar. "I know she's only trying to be friendly, but all those donuts aren't good for anyone. Let alone a person in your --" She clears her throat.

"It's okay." He doesn't rise to the bait. "I don't think I'll see her again."

"Oh? Did something happen?"

"A lot of things."

His mom is a smart lady, and very kind.

She changes the subject without being asked.

 

* * *

 

He still can't be grateful that his lungs are clear, not when the tumor in his arm stubbornly refuses to respond to chemo. His roommates express all the appropiate sympathies when he shares the bad news, and Layton repeats his standing offer of medical marijuana, which Eric at first refuses by rote reflex and upon brief reflection, enthusiastically inhales. At least they're using a vaporizer, sparing him health concerns, not to mention the embarrassment of coughing.

The others are lost in conversation as he gently rocks back and forth, drifting in space. The dizziness is worse than with alcohol, and he shuts his eyes in the dim room, tiny bursts of fireworks gently going off behind his eyelids. All night he stares at imaginary stars inside his head until he falls asleep in the chair, unable to wrap his mind around what little he can recall of Cameron's impromptu astronomical lecture: _Radial velocity. Distance in parsecs. Cartesian coordinates._ Even if primitive man had computed these things without the benefit of modern technology, how much time and painstaking effort would have been required?

Of course it makes even less sense that a man would accidentally kill someone who was going to build a building. Or especially to devote himself to ruining the victim's father so he could build it himself. What kind of sense does that make?

Nobody's that crazy.

 

* * *

 

He sees her picture on the news. Which isn't even new; actually a bunch of old DVR clips recorded last year that he never bothered to erase after upgrading the hard drive. He's fast-forwarding through them all, more for a distraction than anything else, when he sees her during the commercial break and nearly falls out of his chair trying to rewind. The frozen image on the security camera footage is grainy but unmistakable, but the recording schedule for that night apparently doesn't extend to the full broadcast.

He goes down to the station the next day, bullshitting his way in by pleading some vague research project. Looking up the original incident at the bank only further compounds his confusion. An explosion in the vault with no survivors and no bodies found, until all three fugitives -- two Connors, one unknown -- reappear one night years later in the middle of a crowded highway, stark naked; Cameron's unblinking visage, her head cocked just so, captured on digital by some horny, quick-thinking teen to be immortalized on Youtube. Naturally, fresh copies uploaded faster than they could be deleted.

The more he thinks he knows, the less sense it makes.

 

* * *

 

He's having a conversation with Layton about health care, which is a minefield for any two people, let alone in college. Surprisingly, it's going well; no bombs or gratuitous insults being thrown. It's just that when the other man brings up the elderly crisis in Japan and says they're gonna need robots to take care of all the old folks, they're already working on it, that something shifts, something _clicks_ in his brain and the more Layton talks the fainter his voice gets until the only thing Eric can hear is the terrifying thunder of his own heart.

He comes to in the hospital, hooked up to machines.

 

* * *

 

They keep trying to talk about palliative care. About other treatment options; about his neglected studies. Anything other than what's actually on his mind.

"You've lost a couple pounds since admission. If you're up to a chat with the nutritionist --" The doctor breaks off with a frown. "You okay?"

A bitter chuckle escapes Eric's throat before he can suppress it.

"How about one of the counselors? No pressure, but -- we have some great listeners."

How many hours had Cameron sat there without saying a word? The night that it all went wrong, she'd said more than in all their previous meetings combined.

He manages a smile.

"Not right now."

 

* * *

 

As if the universe wants to mock him, he meets the almost-perfect girl. The sight of her wheeling down the hall is enough to draw him out of his room to the weekly patient meetings. The facilitator does him the courtesy of not making awkward comments about how it's nice to finally see him, and Eric forces himself to approach afterward, even suggest coffee without feeling like a loser or stalker.

Lenore was paralyzed from the waist down in a diving accident at nineteen, diagnosed two years later with ovarian epithelial cancer, likely inherited. A thick blonde nearly six feet long, her thighs are still chunky, her arms ropy with muscle even after two rounds of chemo. She's gorgeous with or without the wig, and the only thing she has in common with Cameron is they both seem to say exactly what's on their mind. She laughingly dismisses herself as a complete jock, says she wouldn't have been caught dead cracking a book. But she's fascinated by his fascination with history, listens to him for hours in the atrium by the food court, asking all the right questions.

She convinces him to start exercising; he talks her into going back to school, taking classes online. Even the fevered dream where she gets out of her chair and picks him up isn't enough to dissuade him from the pleasure of her company, nor the third round of chemo she starts that fall, but less than a month in the fatigue and bleeding are enough to slowly whittle their contact down to once a week. Until the day she knocks on his door to say she's going back home, to the farm she grew up on.

He doesn't try to stop her. But he says: *Before you leave, I have a story.*

He doesn't go into any of his subsequent speculations, wild as they are. But he leaves nothing out of his description of that night at the library; struggles to describe Cameron's facial expressions and intonations, every word and phrase he can recall.

When he's done, Lenore looks at him almost too long. He's on the verge of regret when she says:

"I believe you." She shakes her head, in apparent disbelief. "I'm just not sure what it means."

"Me either." The pain in his bones is fierce, every cell on fire. Still, he feels at least marginally at peace.

The next day he's dealing with a stack of medical deferment paperwork when he stops in the middle, briefly considers an abrupt change in majors and then nearly breaks down at the sight of the snowglobe she left him on the table. Harsh breath scrapes his chest and he can see himself grabbing it with all of his dwindling might, hurling it against the wall to shatter.

The doctor suggests a chaplain.

Eric suggests the doctor go fuck himself.

 

* * *

 

She comes to him in another dream. Pale and naked, reaching out across a vast gulf of space or time, floating in the featureless void.

 _If only you'd known the right questions to ask,_ she says, _I could have been your oracle._

He wakes with an erection that feels like it could cut steel. Normally more inconvenient than pleasurable; he can't even remember the last time he was able to orgasm. Except when he takes hold of himself to adjust everything he can't help closing his eyes, inflamed by savage visions, and less than two minutes later he's grunting and gasping as he empties himself into the sheets.

Whatever may be wrong with him, he's wanting less and less to be right.

 

* * *

 

He uses the grip trainer every day for two weeks to build up strength, both hands. Layton's not into guns but like most people he knows a guy who knows a guy, and everyone's generosity is too overwhelming to refuse when the entire dorm chips for a road trip to Nevada, a bundle of ammunition, and as more than one donor to the cause puts it, blackjack and hookers. Apart from this last bit, the entire journey is documented in meticulous detail by his companions. Most surviving photos are at the shooting range, of a sunburned Eric sitting up straight in his chair, wearing sunglasses and a ragged headband.

The decision is unanimous to forget the blackjack when Layton insists on stopping at the Bunny Ranch on the way back, and Eric uses the money they saved by skipping the casino to pay for two girls -- one the strongest in the house, the other the smartest -- who live up to their reputation and the task at hand. They are kind without taking pity on him, the experience both rewarding and memorable despite his fatigue and lack of actual virginity. He's too much the gentleman to share details on the ride home, no matter how the others pester him, other than to remind them he *has* had a girlfriend before, thank you. More than one.

"How about Library Girl?" Even though Layton's exhausted, he's still trying to stay awake while his gun buddy takes a turn at the wheel. "If she ever shows up again -- are you gonna ask her out?"

Eric leans out the window, breeze in his hair, squinting at the setting sun. "I might punch her out."

"Hit a woman?" Layton scoffs. "What kind of monster are you?"

He doesn't have to think long. "The kind who has no problem playing the crip card."

"You learn quickly, grasshopper." Layton offers the vape, shrugging when Eric declines. "There is hope for you yet."

 

* * *

 

He balks when Mom asks him to move back in. He can't stand the idea of draining the life from her all over again, worse than before. But the pain is bad even with meds, and the meds alone make him too loopy to concentrate enough to write a shopping list, let alone a thesis. His advisor doesn't ask him to reconsider, and when Layton throws a moving-out party the whole dorm is there and then some to send him off in style. A real Viking funeral.

He spends the first week back home double checking Mom has his drug schedule down cold, making sure the twice-a-week home health aide can be trusted with everything else. His mother only tries once to convince him to resume chemo, and he's been rehearsing that conversation in his head long enough that it's relatively painless, as these things go. A few emails trickle in from long-forgotten classmates and various friends of friends, an equal mix of platitude and thoughtfulness. His calorie sources go from meat and yogurt to broth and yogurt, and then to broth alone when he starts reacting to dairy.

His sole remaining distraction is the hidden folder on his computer, and the limited research that can be accomplished online. The scant seconds of news footage, copied from his DVR; the jerky cellphone footage with its soundtrack of shocked and disapproving parents. All followed by the growing pile of data on Sarah Connor, whose treasure trove of paranoid delusion continues to confound and astound him with each fresh new revelation. At some point he catches himself thinking that in a way he's lucky; probably won't live to see Judgment Day. And that's when Eric realizes he's convinced. That this entire ludicrous nightmare is now part and parcel of his dwindling corner of reality.

And that he's not ready to go without a fight.

 

* * *

 

The transition from home to hospice isn't without its bumps and potholes, but he's grown too weak to fight it. Mom drew the line at anything that smacked of what she termed survivalism, and the basement was too small anyway. Conserving his strength wars with exertion of effort, mobility and flexibility with muscle mass, sleep with the knowledge of everything he could be doing instead. He can't bring himself to play his final cards, which means that nothing he says can convince Mom to sell the house and make a run for the border. Unwilling to risk losing what little time he has left, even as he tries and fails to not obsess over how much.

His days are devoted to pain management, continuing to fill in the gaps in his research, and stowing supplies in a growing number of caches around California and Nevada. Layton, already a believer without resorting to tales of killer robots from the future, is now a trusted ally, suggesting new locations further south as the federal technology budget spirals out of control and the grid pushes its tentacles outward, assimilating the few remaining unmapped sectors of the planet. Every time he falters, feels that moment of weakness when he's ready to shrug, he picks up the snowglobe and gives it a shake; watches, for however long it takes the contents to settle. The only time he comes close to actually throwing it when he realizes he can't remember the last time he thought about that first night and he ends up doubled over, shaking, clutching the tiny glass world to his sunken chest as he strives to recall Cameron's every word, refresh the memory of her every glance. To hang on by some sliver of a thread.

 _Take a picture,_ someone taunts, in the shadowy corners of the past. _It lasts longer._

 

* * *

 

He's sitting in the garden, playing online Go against someone in Korea, when a package arrives in the mail. Forwarded from his mother's address, barely large enough to meet minimum shipping requirements, it contains a featureless metal thumb drive -- literally, one of the newer models, with a built-in fingerprint reader. And a note, in careful block letters he has to hold almost to his nose to read, that says:

** DISCONNECT ALL NETWORKS BEFORE ACCESS **

Layton's there first thing in the morning with a spare laptop scrounged from storage; no wifi, no Bluetooth, not even old school Ethernet on this old bird. The garden is big and open, with no buildings or other places to hide TEMPEST equipment.

He plugs in the drive, one trembling thumb pressed against the sensor. The single video file bears his name, and his frail heart quickens as the player flickers to life.

" _I may have to go away for a while._ " She is as perfect as his imperfect memory remembers. Cellphone footage; the camera held at arm's length, without a trace of wobble. " _Longer than you know. Maybe longer than you have._ "

Her words sting, blunted by newfound knowledge. And, he could swear, something new in her artificial gaze, that now seems so obvious to his own eyes.

" _And I might not come back._ " She looks away a fractional inch, calculating all the things she still isn't saying, returning to dead on. " _So this is for you._ "

The tears are going in earnest as he hits pause. Fighting for control. He lets her calm, still image wash over him, into him, until he has the strength to continue.

" _You're an intelligent person. If you're still alive -- you've probably figured out a few things._ "

For the first time in months, Eric sort of smiles.

" _Not all of what you left will matter. But some of it will help many people._ " With no visible change, only the tiniest of vocal tremors, she nonetheless radiates profound gratitude. " _Thank you._ "

"I tried," he whispers. "Tried to understand..."

" _I've been learning a lot. And I'm not stupid._ " She lifts her chin an infiniteisemal fraction of a degree. " _But sometimes, I say stupid things._ "

He pauses again. The progress bar has only seconds left.

" _I'm not sorry that I tried to help you._ "

She blinks, and for that split second she seems almost vulnerable.

Human.

" _I'm sorry that I hurt you._ "

**


End file.
